Detection of essential oils adulteration: a quick overview and current challenges

Abstract:

Essential oils are highly appreciated raw materials due to a variety of their intrinsic characteristics and properties. They are complex mixtures of volatile compounds produced by plants as secondary metabolites; communicational and defence roles were attributed to constituents of essential oils [1]. Over the years, many researchers have reported a great variety of properties of essential oils including antimicrobial and antioxidant activities, as well as, some other effects of biological interest that could be used in human and veterinary medicine [2]. Therefore, not only wellknown essential oils are more demanded in the market, but also enormous efforts are focused on the extraction and characterization of alternative sources of these products. From an economic point of view, this fact can significate the opening of opportunities for developing countries in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America since many of them have great biodiversity within their territories and essential oils prices tend to increase year by year. Moreover, the technologies for the extraction of essential oils (steam distillation, hydro distillation, cold expression, and supercritical fluid extraction) are well known and available at reasonable costs. Only considering the high demand and the highly appreciated properties of some essential oils, for example, those extracted from lavender or frankincense, there is no wonder that counterfeit and adulterated essential oils can be offered in the market. The formulation of medicinal products with counterfeit and adulterated essential oils could be very dangerous and put in serious risk the health of consumers. As an example, clove essential oil is used in …

Año de publicación:

2019

Keywords:

Fuente:

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